The Brightest Day

by Christopher Nicole

  He considered the tree. In the darkness, handholds were difficult to discern. And if he were to fall and hurt himself, or even twist an ankle, their mission would be finished before it had properly begun. “Shine you torch.”

  Amalie fumbled in her haversack, produced her torch and played it on the tree. James took off his own haversack, grasped a branch and swung himself up.

  “Do be careful,” she said. He got to within reach of the silk and sawed at it with his knife. Slowly it came free, until he could grasp it and tug. Then it began to rip and a moment later he did nearly fall.

  “Look out!” Amalie cried.

  “Sssh! On a still night sound will travel for ever.” A few more tugs, and the last of the material clouded down. “Bundle that up, and mine.” He climbed down, went to the first container and cut away the ’chute. Amalie followed more slowly, and he peered at her through the gloom.

  “Is something the matter?”

  “I am in pain.”

  “Damnation. Where?”

  “My legs were apart when I landed on that branch. I think I have hurt myself.”

  “It will be just a bruise. It’ll wear off.”

  “Suppose I have broken something? Will you look at it?”

  “Amalie, we are not here to play games. If you are in real pain, sit down over there while I unload the containers.”

  She pouted, sat down, and grunted, then lay down, rolling on to her stomach. So perhaps she had really hurt herself. If she had done something like breaking her pelvis he would have some serious decisions to make. But for the time being, he could concentrate on the containers. Such important items as the sticks of gelignite, the strings of hand grenades, the tommy-guns and ammunition and rations, not to mention their sleeping bags, were stacked to one side. But the radio was the most vital. It had been cocooned in several layers of cloth and rubber and, as far as he could ascertain in the darkness, was in working order. He placed the box of batteries beside it and returned to Amalie. “Can you move?” She pushed herself up to her knees. “Good girl. We have to shift this equipment from these open slopes to the shelter of that little wood.”

  Amalie held his hand to get to her feet. “You don’t believe I am hurt, do you?”

  “Help me get this gear to those trees, and I’ll look at you.”

  “Would you? I’d like that.”

  He reflected that while Rachel had sensed that this girl could be dangerous in her inability to restrain her anxiety to get at the Germans, she had not considered the possibility that she might prove a problem in other ways as well. Or had she?

  *

  It took them over an hour to transfer all the gear to the trees, and then the containers and the parachutes, then they drank a thermos of coffee. “What happens now?” Amalie asked.

  “The idea was that we go into Aumont together and make a few discreet enquiries. I need you along because my French is clearly foreign. But if you are incapable of moving…”

  “I can move. How far distant is it?”

  “Several miles.”

  “I will manage it. Will you look at me?”

  He sighed but there was nothing for it. She released her zip and slipped the suit down. “You will have to take it right off,” he said, “if the bruise is between your legs.”

  “What about my knickers?”

  “I think you can keep them on for the time being.”

  “Oh.” She sounded disappointed, but she discarded the suit and hitched her skirt up to her waist.

  James switched on his torch and shone it on the pale flesh, moving up to the silk covering her groin. She had certainly hurt herself, but the damage was on the inside of her thighs, where the flesh was broken and there was some blood. “You’ll live,” he said. “In fact, you’ll be as right as rain in a couple of days. I’ll just put something on these cuts.” He opened the First Aid box, found the analgesic ointment and coated the bruises.

  It was Amalie’s turn to sigh. “Do you know that it is eighteen months since a man has touched me there?”

  “Well, I wouldn’t rush it. You’re going to be sore for a few days. There we go. Now, try to get some rest. We’ll make a move at first light.”

  He took off his own suit, unfolded their sleeping bags, and she inserted herself with sighs and grunts.

  “I do not think you like me,” she remarked as she settled.

  “Don’t be ridiculous. You’re one of my favourite people. When you’re behaving yourself.”

  “But you will not have sex with me. You do not find me attractive. Do you know that apart from those brutes of the Gestapo, only you and Henri have ever touched me there? If Liane were here, you would have sex with her.”

  “That’s another point. I’ve never been big on incest. Now for God’s sake, go to sleep.”

  *

  Philipe Chartrin asked, “Did you hear the plane?” He was a tall young man, but thin, with hatchet features. He stood in the doorway of the small underground bedroom, twisting his hands together, as he always did when in the presence of the woman he worshipped.

  Liane de Gruchy was seated on a stool in front of the mirror that hung above the small dressing-table, brushing her hair; no matter what her circumstances, she believed in always looking her best (unless she intended to look her worst, which she could do very efficiently). She wore only the shirt in which she had slept, and that was simply because the cellar was chill. To be in her presence when she was in such deshabille had Philipe’s heart pounding. Twenty-three years old, he knew she was ten years his senior, but how he dreamt of sharing her bed, without the shirt! In the four months, she had been sheltering beneath his father’s farm, he had done no more than touch her hand.

  She turned to face him, still sitting, the shirt riding up sufficiently to allow a glimpse of the pale vee at her groin before settling again. That she treated him, as she treated all men, as if he were a brother, was no comfort. He knew her reputation; that when she chose to exert herself, sexually, there was no woman in the world could match her. She was only a few inches over five feet tall, and her body was slender; if her breasts appeared larger than they were, it was because everything about her was so perfectly proportioned. Her hair was a pale blonde, absolutely straight, drifting past her shoulders. But all of her beauty was subsumed by her face, for the flawlessly chiselled features were overlaid with a sheen of soft kindliness that made a man, in addition to wanting to make love with her, even more anxious to hold her and guard her against the world. The knowledge that controlling so much sheer delight was an ice-cold brain that had killed, time and again, that those perfectly shaped hands had more than once been stained with blood, could drive a man mad. And none of it mattered, beside her voice, the purest liquid velvet.

  “I hear nothing down here,” she said. “What time was this plane?”

  “Just after midnight. Close and low. It circled twice and then left.”

  “How many engines?”

  “I think only one.”

  “Thank God!” Liane said. “We are not forgotten. If it circled, there was a drop. Does Monsieur Moulin know?”

  “I wished to tell you first.”

  “You are a good boy. Now go and wake Monsieur Moulin and tell him what you have told me. Hurry, now.”

  Philipe hesitated, cast a last longing look at her legs and left the room. Liane got up and closed the door, then dressed in shirt and trousers and canvas boots. She added her beret, placed her Luger automatic pistol in her knapsack, slung the sack and her tommy-gun from her shoulder, then went into the central cellar where the wine barrels and the cured meat were stored. She encountered Jean Moulin emerging from the other concealed bedroom.

  “Do you believe it?” he asked, his voice a thin croak that went with his emaciated frame and trembling hands; if no one could ever doubt his courage, the evidence of what he had suffered was plain to see.

  “I intend to find out,” Liane said.

  “After so long…”

  “The import
ant thing is that they are still looking, and now they have found us.” She led the way up the stairs into the farmhouse kitchen. “Odile.”

  Madame Chartrin was laying the table for breakfast. “You know of the plane?”

  “Philipe told me. Now we must find what it dropped. Philipe?”

  “I am here, mademoiselle. I am ready.” He held up his shotgun.

  “I will come too,” Gabrielle announced The girl was seventeen, six years younger than her brother, but already nearly matching his height. On her, the sharp Chartrin features were softened in an attractive delicacy and, if she would never be beautiful with her abundance of curling dark hair and her full figure, she was worth a second glance from any man.

  Odile embraced her. “Be careful.” She would say no more than that; she knew that all of their lives hung by a shoestring.

  Charles Chartrin, a heavier edition of his son, was just returning to the house from milking the cows. At his heels, the Pyrenean Mountain dog, Rufus, panted. “You think it could be from London?”

  “Single engined, it must be the Lysander. Flying low and circling, it must be a drop. Where, do you reckon?”

  “Two, maybe three, valleys away.”

  Liane nodded and turned back to Moulin, who stood in the doorway, his face sombre. He wished to accompany her, but he knew that his half-crippled body would only slow her up. She blew him a kiss. “Back for lunch.”

  Philipe snapped his fingers for Rufus to follow them, and he and Gabrielle hurried behind Liane, out of the walled enclosure, to set out across the pasture, which here undulated gently upwards towards the low hillside that masked the next valley, until the cow pasture was behind them. He carried a haversack with some bottles of water and stayed just behind her, content both to let her lead and to watch her steady, tireless movements. Rufus roamed in front of them while Gabrielle came last, her long hair fluttering in the morning breeze, as did the skirt of her dress.

  Liane was exhilarated. Escaping the Limoges area last year had been traumatic, especially with Jean needing regular rest and unsteady on his feet. They had been taken entirely by surprise when the Germans had suddenly crossed the border in such strength; at that time, no one in Vichy had heard more than a rumour of the Torch landings and, if Petain’s government had been thrown into confusion, equally no one had expected the Germans to react so swiftly and so violently. For the previous several months, Moulin had worked secretly and successfully, travelling about the country, seeing various Resistance leaders and instilling in them some idea of homogeneity. They could never be considered an underground army; even had they possessed sufficient weaponry to mount any kind of rising, the different commanders all had different ideologies and thus different agendas. But he had been able to persuade most of them to accept the concept of General de Gaulle as leader of the Free French, as he liked to call his movement, and Jean had reckoned he had some ten thousand men and women prepared to rise up whenever the Allies launched their long-promised invasion, and in the meanwhile who were willing to carry out a systematic disruption of German installations and infrastructure. If blowing up trains and bridges was very dangerous and not always successful, other measures such as pouring sand into engine oil or “misinterpreting” orders so that the wrong train was misdirected to the wrong place were simple and nearly impossible for the enemy to pin down.

  Now the various groups were entirely splintered. No one knew what was happening to anyone else. Liane had known immediately that she and Jean had to leave Limoges; nor did she dare tell Anatole, the baker, Pound Seventeen, anything more of their intentions than that they were going south. She did not entirely trust Anatole, and she certainly did not trust his ability to withstand Gestapo questioning. But she had told him to convey that information to Pound One, James Barron, as soon as possible. James would surely recognize that she was heading back to the Massif.

  But had he? Or had something happened to Anatole? Or had he simply betrayed them? The problems were that they had had to abandon radio contact, as there was no way they could carry the cumbersome transmitter with them, and it had taken them two months to get down here. She had at least been sure of a welcome, and especially from the Chartrins, who she had known back in 1940 before her group had been forced to move north after Weber’s raid. Charles Chartrin and his son had fitted out two of the cellar rooms for them to live in, and although the gendarmerie had come to the farm, quite recently – part of a routine search, they had explained – they had clearly neither expected nor wanted to find anything.

  In the meantime, they had resumed recruiting, slowly and carefully, never letting on who they actually were but claiming to represent a central controlling force that would one day call the people of the Massif into action. That had been interesting and useful work, and hopefully would be rewarding, but without support from London it had also been pointlessly frustrating. But now… She topped the rise, only slightly out of breath, and waited for Philipe and Gabrielle to catch her up. From her knapsack she took her binoculars and swept the valley below. The sun was steadily rising behind her, but much of the valley remained in gloom.

  “Must be the next one over,” she decided.

  “I saw something move.” Philipe did not have binoculars, but he had countryman’s eyes. “In those trees.”

  “I see it too,” Gabrielle said.

  Liane levelled the glasses again and kept them focused for several seconds. “Yes,” she said at last. “In those trees.”

  “They could be Germans.”

  “Germans would not be hiding in a wood. Let’s get down there.” She started down the slope and, after a moment’s hesitation, the Chartrins followed. Rufus caught the spirit and charged ahead. They moved towards the wood at a steady pace, but Liane unslung her tommy-gun, just in case. The people in the wood remained concealed until they were within a hundred yards, then a man stepped from the trees. Liane halted, peering at the shabby clothes, the countryman’s beret. Then she shouted, “James!” and ran forward, Rufus beside her, now barking excitedly.

  James ran too, checking as the dog charged him.

  “Down, Rufus!” Liane commanded, and the large beast halted a few feet short of its target, panting. Liane went past him, and she and James threw their arms round each other. “Oh, James,” she said. “It’s been so long. There were times I thought you had abandoned us.”

  He kissed her mouth. “Abandoned you? It took us this long to get hold of Anatole.”

  She pulled her head back. “Something has happened?”

  “You were never too happy about him, as I remember. But come…” He held her hand and led her towards the trees.

  Liane stared at her sister, just stepping from shelter. “Amalie? Amalie!” She released James to embrace the younger woman. “But what are you doing here?”

  “I have come back to be with you. To fight the Boches.”

  Liane looked at James. “She’s got clearance,” he said.

  “And I thought you would be safe until the War ends,” Liane grumbled. “But it is good to see you.” She hugged her again, and then indicated the two young people, who were slowly approaching. “This is Philipe Chartrin and Gabrielle. You remember the Chartrins, Amalie?”

  “I remember them very well. As I remember you, Philipe. But Gabrielle, how you have grown.”

  Gabrielle simpered. “She is a woman now,” Philipe said proudly. “But Madame Burstein, we were so sorry to learn about your husband.”

  “He was avenged,” Amalie said. “And will be again.”

  “We must get back to the farm,” Liane said. “We are here because Philipe heard the Lysander. Others may have heard it too.”

  “We cannot hurry,” James said. “Amalie hurt herself landing.”

  “Is it bad?”

  “It is awkward,” Amalie said. “It makes walking difficult.”

  “Then Philipe will carry you.”

  “There is also some gear,” James said. “In the next valley. Where we landed.”


  Liane’s eyes gleamed. “Guns? Ammunition?”

  “A few. But more importantly, a radio.”

  “Thank God for that. We have felt so cut off. Is this materiél hidden?”

  “From anything but a serious search by someone who knows there is something to find.”

  “I think we should look at it, and make sure of the radio, at least. Philipe, Gabrielle, take Madame Burstein to the farm. We will be back later.”

  “You do not wish me to stay with you, mademoiselle?”

  “I have told you what I wish you to do. And take Rufus with you. “She kissed Amalie. “We will have a long talk, this afternoon. Show me where you have hidden this gear, James.” The pair of them set off, and Amalie looked at Philipe. “You do not have to carry me, if you are prepared to walk slowly and rest from time to time.”

  “It would be a pleasure to carry you, madame, at least from time to time.”

  “Well, when I get tired. Which way is it?”

  “Over here. You are happy for the mademoiselle to go off with that Englishman?”

  “They are old friends.”

  “They are lovers.”

  “You are an observant boy. Yes, they are lovers. They have been lovers for years, whenever they have been able to get together, which hasn’t been very often.”

  “She gives her body to him,” Philipe said, half to himself. “But he will not marry her. He is a swine.”

  “Of course he is not a swine,” Amalie snapped. “He would marry her, if he could. But he is an army officer and she will not leave France while we are fighting the Boche.”

  “You say he is an army officer? Then what is he doing here?”

  “He is our boss. He has come to tell us what to do next.”

  “Mademoiselle Liane has a boss: Monsieur Moulin.”

  “This man is Monsieur Moulin’s boss as well.”

  “I think Mr Barron looks very nice,” Gabrielle ventured. Philipe hunched his shoulders.

  *

  Liane and James climbed the hill and went down into the next valley. “Is she really hurt?” Liane asked.

  “Just bruised between her thighs. She landed in a tree.”